I read the collected trade paperback of this famous story but I was surprised to find that Days of Future Past is only a two issue story arc. The majority of this collection is padded out with a few different stories around that saga. However, everything in this collection directly follows The Dark Phoenix Saga.

Days of Future Past is a story I have never read, until now, but it’s been heralded as on of the best in the decades since it came out. But if I’m being honest, I didn’t think it was a real classic of a story. At least, not in how it has been sold to me over the years.

It’s a good, fun story but I think it’s severely over hyped. I think that it’s fondly remembered because it introduced the idea of possible dark futures to the X-Men mythos and that’s a storytelling device that never really went away after this tale. We’ve had time travelling characters showing up in X-Men stories all the time ever since Days of Future Past.

That being said, one can’t deny the impact that this story had and anything with lasting power like that is going to always be a pivotal point for fans to go back and reference. But looking at it objectively, without any actual nostalgia for it, allows me to rate the story on its own merit, detached from decades of nostalgia and hype.

Also, maybe I’m a bit less impressed than I should be because I read this just after The Dark Phoenix Saga and that story is legitimately a real classic, in my eyes. But that’s not to say that Days of Future Past isn’t a milestone, it is.

Ultimately, this is still a solid collection of stories where the two issue Days of Future Past story arc is the high point. But I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t a long, massive epic like I always thought that it was.

Rating: 7.5/10Pairs well with: other X-Men stories from the Chris Claremont/John Byrne era.

Does it make me a terrible X-Men fan that I have never actually read The Dark Phoenix Saga?

I’ve tried to round up all the single issues over the years but some of them are pricey and there’s nine issues that make up this arc. But in my defense, I know the story very well, as it has been referenced a million times over throughout X-Men history. I’ve also seen various interpretations and adaptations of the plot. Granted, none of them are really accurate in regards to this, the source material.

This is free for Comixology Unlimited subscribers though, so I thought that delving into it was long overdue and that I really didn’t have an excuse anymore.

I expected this to be enjoyable but it still took me by surprise, as it was better than what I anticipated and all the years of hype I’ve experienced, didn’t diminish it in anyway.

The Dark PhoenixSaga is quintessential Chris Claremont. I can’t say that this is where he peaked but this is certainly a very elevated highpoint in his long run writing X-Men related stories.

This also came out in a time when Marvel wasn’t addicted to big crossover mega-events. This was a mega-event for its time but it wasn’t marketed or structured in the way that these things are now. It was just a good, lengthy story, limited to one already existing comic that found a way to utilize a lot of characters but in a way that balanced them all out and made them all useful to the plot.

One cool thing about this arc, is it also features the first appearances of Kitty Pryde, Emma Frost, Sebastian Shaw, the Hellfire Club and Dazzler. There’s a bunch of stuff going on within this story but it doesn’t off track and still builds towards the big battle between Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix and her X-Men family. It’s, at times, heartbreaking and tragic but it also makes you love all these people all over again in an organic, natural and emotional way. This hits emotional notes in the reader in ways that comic books never seem to come close to in 2019.

I can’t just give credit to Chris Claremont and his stupendous writing though. The art by John Byrne is absolutely superb and it is just as rich, colorful and meticulously crafted as the story its telling.

The Dark Phoenix Saga is one of the greatest Marvel stories ever told. It’s classic Marvel and truly represents what I loved about the era and how I fell in love with this creative medium in the first place.

Rating: 10/10Pairs well with: other early Chris Claremont X-Men comics.

I went into this thinking that I would like it for the most part. The events that precede it were pretty good reads. What I didn’t expect was to be blown away. But in the end, I have to say, this was one of the absolute best X-Men crossover events that I have ever experienced. Seriously, this was nothing short of superb.

More than anything, this story made me love Cable more than ever and it got me to love Hope Summers, who I would say is one of the best characters to come out of the last decade, even though she previously appeared as a baby before this in Messiah Complex.

This had a lot going on in the story but there was room for it all. Plus, all the key players were well balanced throughout and it gave most of the top characters a real purpose and mission.

There are real consequences in this story, as some key X-Men figures die. Granted, one could argue that those consequences are never real because no one truly dies in comics and the two biggest victims of this story are already alive and well, once again. But despite that, it felt like a real blow within this narrative. It didn’t lose its impact knowing that they’d eventually be back.

Second Coming carries all the doom and gloom of Messiah Complex over and it brings more doom and gloom but it ends in a way that finally sees a glimmer of “hope” appear in the darkest time of the X-Men franchise. I don’t want to spoil too much because I’d rather people give this a read.

Being that this is a crossover event, there is a mix of art styles. All of it works for me though, even if there are noticeable style shifts from chapter to chapter. Ultimately, the tone stays about the same from beginning to end.

This is a fairly long read but none of it is boring or filler. It moves at a brisk pace, keeps you engaged and makes you cheer for these heroes in a way that you haven’t since the early ’90s.

Rating: 10/10Pairs well with: the stories that precede it: Avengers Disassembled, House of M and X-Men: The Messiah Complex, as well as the one this leads up to: Avengers Vs. X-Men.

The New Mutants was one of my first loves in comic books. I discovered it at a pretty early age and loved it, along with the Chris Claremont era of the X-Men. So I wanted to check out this series from 2003-2004. I had put it off for a long time but with it being free for Comixology Unlimited members, I finally decided to give it a read.

All this did was disappoint me though. And man, it was a really long read at 350 pages. This collection covers the whole run of the relaunched series, plus some other comics that tie into the story.

This focuses on the formation of a new team of mutant youngsters, as opposed to bringing the original team back together. The cover was severely misleading as I wanted to read the adventures of that team. All the characters on the cover don’t even come together until the last issue in this collection and even then, it’s way too late and doesn’t do much to salvage the complete boredom I felt for everything before it.

10-20 percent of this giant collection features actual action. The rest of it is just talking and talking and talking and talking. And even with 80-90 percent of this being dialogue, I don’t really care about any of these characters and there is no emotional weight to anything that happens between the covers.

Even if you are a hardcore New Mutants fan, you can ignore this completely and not miss anything. If you are a Dani Moonstar fan, I guess you might want to read it, simply for the fact that she is a big part of this slow, boring story.

Rating: 3.5/10Pairs well with: more modern X-Men and New Mutants comics.

I wasn’t expecting much from this two-issue story arc but I was pleasantly surprised by how fun this was.

I love the X-Men and I love Alpha Flight. I especially love when they come together.

In this story we see the X-Men get captured by Baron Strucker and Hydra. Alpha Flight then goes in to save them.

I didn’t realize that this was a 1998 story when I first read it, as the version on Comixology listed it as 2016. So at first I thought it was a cool throwback because it had a very ’90s art style.

This is also the second X-Men/Alpha Flight team up mini-miniseries. I have read and owned the first one for years now. I don’t remember how good that one was but if it’s on par with this, that’d be great.

For a short story that didn’t have much room to breathe, this was a good, fun comic that reminded me why I loved these two teams back in the ’80s and ’90s.

This follows the major event in X-Men and Avengers lore that was House of M, which itself followed Avengers: Disassembled. While the Scarlet Witch is no longer the focal point here, the effects of what she did in the two previous stories is still felt and the central focus of this large crossover event’s plot. This is also an X-Men-centric story as it doesn’t crossover with Avengers characters or titles this time.

In a way this does a good job of closing out what some call the House of M trilogy but it also sets up an event that is a direct sequel to this called Second Coming.

The story is pretty good but it may be hard to follow for someone who just jumps in or for an old school X-Men fan that will be bombarded with a bunch of newer characters, as this came out when The New X-Men was going strong.

Overall, this is pretty good but the story jumps around a lot and if you don’t binge through it fairly quickly, you’ll probably forget some details. Also, some threads within the larger plot aren’t as great as others.

I didn’t care so much for the New X-Men Team and was more intrigued by what was going on with the main X-Men and the Marauders. Although, I had hoped that Mister Sinister would really get his moment to shine brightly and he’s just sort of there, leading the Marauders, and then he’s out of the story. Although, the twist that sees him taken out of the plot was pretty neat and it’s not something that I saw coming.

If you like classic X-Men, this more modern event will still probably resonate with you. It feels more like a ’90s X-Men event than something made within the last decade or so.

Rating: 7.75/10Pairs well with: Avengers: Disassembled and House of M.

Typhoid Fever was a series of three one-shots but they were all part of a single story. The series focused on Typhoid Mary, who is traditionally a Daredevil villain. However, Daredevil wasn’t involved with this story and instead, the focus as far as the hero side of the story was on Spider-Man, Iron Fist and the X-Men.

With these being one-shots strung together as a sort of mini event, I felt that the time between the release of each issue was too long. Reason being, I read a ton of comics and by the time I got to each new issue, I barely remembered what happened in the one preceding it. Which also reflects on the writing, as nothing seemed memorable or all that noteworthy.

I just read this and I really only recall the details of the final issue, which featured Iron Fist. I did enjoy it better than the other two issues though with the Spider-Man one being okay and the X-Men one making me want to quit this miniseries before the final chapter.

The issues were just inconsistent and even though the last issue was the strongest, it didn’t really improve the other ones by tying things together in a nice, fluid way.

The art was also just okay. It didn’t blow my socks off but it wasn’t terrible. It was pretty standard and didn’t have any sort of stylistic flourish to it, which is an issue I have had with a lot of modern Marvel books. Everything just seems to be passable and lacking personality and flair.

I’m not even sure why this series was made. It didn’t do much to make Typhoid Mary a more interesting character. Maybe they did this because she debuted in live action form, earlier this year in the Iron Fist TV show. But if that’s the case, they should have released this six months earlier.

Rating: 5.5/10Pairs well with: Charles Soule’s recent run on Daredevil. Also, any Typhoid Mary story arc from Daredevil since her debut in the late ’80s.